1. Technical Field
This invention relates to telecommunications processing systems. In particular, this invention relates to accurately and efficiently determining a maximum duration of a service use transaction, such as the maximum time allowed for a cellular phone call.
2. Related Art
Rapid advances in data processing and telecommunications technology have lead to a vast array of communication services available to the consumer. Such telecommunication services include Internet service, cable television service, cellular phone service, paging service, combined voice and data delivery service, and many other services. Furthermore, most services may be wireless or wireline based.
With the increase in available services has also come increased flexibility in paying for those services. Traditionally, most customer accounts were post-paid accounts. For post-paid accounts, the service provider tracked all of the time a customer spent using a service, determined the applicable cost, and billed the customer (e.g., monthly). In other words, the customer paid only after using the service.
More recently, pre-paid accounts have become a viable option for paying for telecommunications services. For a pre-paid account, a customer makes an initial payment to the service provider which establishes a credit balance with the service provider. The customer may then use the telecommunications service until the credit balance is exhausted, with accounting performed after the termination of each service use transaction.
Allowing the customer to continue a service use transaction beyond what the credit balance will support means that the service provider loses revenue. When multiplied against the significant and steadily increasing number of pre-paid accounts, continued service beyond what a credit balance will support significantly compounds the revenue loss for the service provider. Nevertheless, in the past, service providers did not have an accurate or efficient mechanism for determining how long a pre-paid account balance would pay for a proposed service transaction, such as a cellular phone call.
Implementing enhanced performance techniques for pre-paid accounts poses significant technical challenges, however. One such challenge is efficiently and accurately determining the maximum duration available for a desired service. This is a particularly difficult technical challenge, given that hundreds or thousands of ongoing pre-paid service use transactions may be simultaneously occurring at any given time, and given that many different time rates, discounts, and rating schedules may be in place over a wide range of products and services.